


A Very Brace Face Thanksgiving

by Septembers_coda



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Brotherly Bonding, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Pie, Thanksgiving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-06
Updated: 2013-12-06
Packaged: 2018-01-03 15:29:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1072103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Septembers_coda/pseuds/Septembers_coda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I wrote a fluffy ficlet for the Thanksgiving-themed comment fic meme over at  spn-bunker  on LJ! I responded to this prompt from kalliel: “So how did Sam end up at Thanksgiving dinner with the girl in 5x16? How did it go? And what were Dean and John doing (either together or separately; who knows)? Did they even remember it was a holiday?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Very Brace Face Thanksgiving

Dean slammed the bucket of chicken down on the little table by the hotel room door. Sam started and looked up from his laptop.

“No Boston Market in this town,” Dean said.

Sam arched an eyebrow at him quizzically. “Oh, right. Thanksgiving.”

“They didn’t have salad. Got you some coleslaw.” He plunked a plastic container in front of Sam.

“Thanks...” He looked at Dean again, knowing he didn’t have to try to come up with the right question to ask. It would come out in a minute.

It did. After rustling in the paper bag a little more, taking out plastic forks and napkins, Dean burst out, “So what was so great about Brace Face and her boring white-bread family?”

Sam frowned. “You’re still thinking about that?”

Dean shrugged, slapping a fried chicken leg on a plate. “Nah, not really. Just, you know. Thanksgiving.” 

He chewed the leg contemplatively, still staring at Sam. Sam went back to his laptop.

“Aren’t you gonna eat?”

“Yeah, in a minute. Just following this lead. You go ahead.” Like Dean needed any encouragement.

But Dean surprised him, a rare occurrence. He reached over and shut Sam’s laptop with one hand and plunked a plastic plate in front of him with the other.

“No. It’s Thanksgiving. You don’t work on Thanksgiving. We’re gonna… have a nice meal, and… give thanks, or something.” Dean looked embarrassed by the words before they even left his mouth.

Sam squinted at him in disbelief. “Since _when_?”

“Since now, since I said!” Dean exploded.

Sam stared, a little startled, but then shrugged, took a chicken breast out of the bucket, and opened the container of coleslaw. Dean took out another pair of containers, one larger and one smaller, that proved to be mashed potatoes and gravy. He ladled potatoes onto Sam’s plate angrily, and added a veritable lake of gravy. 

Sam opened his mouth to remind Dean that he didn’t like gravy, but thought better of it.

“So.” Dean served himself some potatoes with a healthy ladling of gravy, though much less than he’d given Sam. “Tell me about Brace Face.”

Sam scowled. The nickname was really irritating him for some reason. “Like I’m gonna spill secrets about my first girlfriend to someone who keeps calling her Brace Face?” he snorted. He realized his mistake when Dean hooted.

“She was your _girlfriend?_ Awww, Sammy! That’s so cute! You cut your tongue on those—”

“You say one more word about her braces and I’m gonna punch you.”

Dean hooted again, but then fell silent. He was like that these days: volatile, vacillating from sarcastic, forced cheerfulness to moody darkness like a flickering porch light. He chewed for a moment, then said, “So you really liked this girl.”

“Dean, I was 11.” Sam didn’t figure Dean would notice that this didn’t answer the question, but he was wrong.

“Doesn’t keep you from liking her. Though I had no idea you got started so young.”

“You’re one to talk. I remember playing in the sandbox at Pastor Jim’s while you tried to flip up the little girls’ Sunday school dresses.”

“Hey, I wasn’t—that makes me sound like a pervert!”

Sam just smirked, avoiding his eye.

“Hey, it’s not like I was some weirdo stalking the schoolyard—I was seven!”

“So you remember it, too. Fondly?” Sam was grinning triumphantly. Dean was so easy to distract.

Dean drew back with a dangerous scowl, and Sam prepared to block a punch, but then Dean stopped. “Hey. Nuh uh. We were talking about… what was her name, if you don’t want me to call her Brace Face?”

Sam sighed, and gave in. This happened occasionally—Dean actually wanted to know something about him, and wouldn’t rest until he heard the whole story. “Stephanie.”

Dean smiled, and gestured expansively for Sam to continue. “And what made Stephanie so special?”

So Sam told him.

~***~

Sam leaned back, full of fried chicken and coleslaw, and nibbled half-heartedly at the grocery store pumpkin pie Dean had triumphantly produced, and was now shoveling down. He sighed as he finished reminiscing.

Dean was surprisingly quiet, until: 

“Wait a second… you read a book about a _unicorn?_ And her Dad was a _dentist_?” He cleared his throat, smirking. “Sure it wasn’t an orthodontist?”

Sam raised his fist. Dean held up his hands placatingly. “Hey, hey. I didn’t say it! That totally doesn’t count.”

Sam lowered his fist. He was enjoying the memory too much to get too upset.

“But… really, unicorns, Sam?”

“The Last Unicorn is a classic, Dean. Like Lord of the Rings. It’s not just about unicorns. It’s a metaphor for—” He stopped, and sighed at Dean’s half-horrified, half blank expression. “The point was, she saw that I sat alone on the playground reading every day, and she gave me a book she thought I’d like, then we talked about it. She was a cool girl, we liked a lot of the same things, and… yeah, she became my girlfriend. And her family gave me my first real Thanksgiving. I missed you and Dad, but it was nice, not worrying that you were gonna come home and bleed to death on the hotel room bed before I could get you stitched up.”

“I told you, Dad wasn’t anywhere near bleeding to death that time. You just thought—”

“Yeah, I was nine, and I thought being really pale and shaking and covered with blood meant you might die. I’ve learned better from personal experience, but it took a while, Dean.”

Dean was quiet. “Reminds me of what me and Dad were doing while you were with Br—Stephanie’s family,” Dean said.

Sam felt inexpressibly sad, suddenly. “Yeah? What were you doing?”

“What we were always doing.”

Sam sighed. There was a long silence.

“Um… well…” Sam said, then paused. “Thanks for this.” He gestured at the remains of their feast—crumpled napkins, crumbs of breading, and plastic containers festooning the little table. 

Dean just grunted.

Sam thought hard for a minute. He’d done a lot of things lately he wasn’t proud of, a lot of things he was sorry for. But Thanksgiving was supposed to be about gratitude, not regret. He figured, if Dean really wanted to do this, he might as well do it up right. 

“And…” He cleared his throat. “Thanks for doing the job, you know. Trying to keep me out of it as long as you could. So I could have things like that Thanksgiving with Stephanie.”

“You’re welcome,” Dean mumbled, to Sam’s shock. “Thanks for telling me about it.”

Sam was silent with disbelief. Dean struggled with himself for a minute. Sam thought he was going to thank him for something else, but knew that was out the window when Dean cracked a wicked grin.

“So, what happened _after_ dinner, Romeo? Parents leave you two alone in her bedroom? You get a little tongue-on-metal action? You—” 

He stopped when Sam sat forward and glared dangerously at him. Sam drew breath to say something huffy, but then he stopped. When Dean smiled tentatively, Sam cracked a grin.

“I totally got to second base,” he said.

~The End~


End file.
